> What sports team gets any kudos for being ahead at half-time in a game they lost?

I do not follow many other sports but I am aware of other sports that have similar awards.

Motor racing for example. There are championships that award points for pole position, fastest race lap and most laps completed in the lead.

You can lose a rugby match and still pick up bonus points for scoring a lot of tries.

Rugby 7’s is a successful example where the teams that ‘win’ the plate and bowl competitions have actually finished 9th and 17th respectively. In a similar way if it encourages participation and keeps up interest I think it is a good idea to award these token session A points in the Babich pairs - especially when you consider you really need to be committed to getting 500 of them in a reasonably short period of time to get any real kudos.

Being a single session event the Babich pairs may well be the first A-point event a beginner pair enters and has a chance to win one. If they do manage to win an A-point as a session winner this may well encourage them to then enter a multi-session A-point tournament to try to earn more of them. If this then leads them to becoming regular tournament players this could only be a good thing for bridge generally.

So I think it can only be seen as a positive that Hamilton had 3 J-J pairs participate in the Babich pairs and from the scores highlighted have had a real chance to earn a session A-point.